In case you’re not involved in the Go Twitter Community, a new movie involving go has been released!!!! There is go and it has kung fu!!! Ahhh!!!!!!

I’ve embedded the trailer below. Stop whatever else you’re doing and check this out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvYEhqqemrY

I can’t wait to buy a copy of this. So psyched!!!!

Credit to @goBum for sharing this epic news!

Overview

This week has been a continuation of trying to get used to the new training regimen that I started last week. Believe it or not, I have been rather successful at playing more instead of solely focusing on studying. So in that regard, things are a success.

On the other hand, I lost again in my match this week for Yunguseng Dojang. After some thought and introspection, I have come to the conclusion that my go has become very impatient lately. I try to complicate the game with every move while also experimenting with a territorial style that just ends up not working out for me. Sigh.

Ah well. It has been fun experimenting with the territorial style. And who knows? Maybe this little detour of mine will help to patch up some of my weaknesses from my normal style. Guess we’ll have to see!

Training Regimen

• Spend about 50% of your time playing games.
• Spend 10 minutes/day perusing a new book of go.
• Spend 20 minutes/day diligently working on the Level Up series.

Games

• Tygem - 6 games
• IGS - 2 games
• KGS - 3 games
• DGS - 5 ongoing games
• OGS - 3 ongoing games

Books

• Level Up Review 1
• Level Up Review 2
• The Theory and Practice of Semeai

Lessons Learned

• Patience is an important value when playing go.
• When you have an overwhelming advantage, (1) don’t become overconfident and (2) don’t give your opponent a chance to turn it around.

Introduction

And we’re back for the second week of Thursday Go Tygem! Unfortunately since the last game, I was demoted to 2d. No matter though! The opponents are still dans, so we march onwards!

This game I take White against a 2d. The opening starts out with a terrible exchange on my part, and then a crazy fight for supremacy in the middle game breaks out after he makes a mistake in trying to cut apart my groups. Definitely a game that demonstrates how kiai (i.e., fighting spirit) can make a big difference in a position where you are initially at a disadvantage.

As always, please let me know if there is anything I can do to improve this series for you guys!

Game Summary

no,Category,Good,Bad
1,Opening,Moves 44: Was proud to find this move to resist Black’s attempt to get an overwhelming advantage in the opening.,Move 18+: The push cut exchange made me over-concentrated and in bad position.
2,Middle Game,Overall it felt like the middle game was in my favor and I outplayed my opponent.,Move 168: Avoiding the ko was so indescribably bad because there was no ko. hangs head in shame Could have been such an easy game…
3,Fighting,Move 122+: I was quite proud to be able to fight on even grounds in such close proximity here.,Move 168: So shameful it gets restated twice. Just so bad.
4,Endgame,Move 212: I was proud to find this attachment quickly to reduce Black’s area., Can’t say I was great at identifying the biggest value on the board; but tried to use sente/gote moves as my points of reference.
5,Overall Reading,Move 80: Outreading Black by knowing the cut didn’t work was very satisfying.,Move 188: This should have been at R3 to make life in the corner and would have changed the result of the game.

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #40

Recently I have found myself exploring a lot of new ideas and concepts from varying schools of go. A simple example of this is my inability to stick with reviewing one style of go at a time. For example, last week I was very motivated to finally purchase Master Play: The Territorial Styles of Kitani & Cho Chikun and find out what it really meant to have a “territorial style.” It was a fascinating and eye opening read; but once I had read most of the book within a few hours, I was suddenly driven to go back and study Master Play: The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao & Seo Bong Soo as well! Talk about opposing styles!

As you might expect, my games have also started to undergo a change as well. I find myself trying all sorts of weird and new things lately because of all these new ideas floating around my head. So as I was perusing for ideas to write for this week’s Weekly Go Wednesday, the following quotation from Pablo Picasso inspired me to write this post:

“I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Read More

I just finished my second round of Yunguseng Dojang. As the title of the post states explicitly, it was another sound defeat to be added to my battle staff of go.

On one hand, I want to make myself feel better by telling myself that I played well. On the other hand though, I also was playing completely out of my style this game as well.

I don’t know why it is, but lately I’ve been trying really hard to use the territorial style as White. And then on top of that, I’ve been hell bent on making the game as complicated as possible from the start. So that ends up putting me in experimental territory that I’m completely unfamiliar with.

Do I wish I would have managed to win my second round? Yeah. Feeling a bit crummy at the moment. Hopefully the review will shed some light on my mistakes. Ah well. Off to bed I go.

Up till now, my go studies have been pretty sporadic. I may have read my fair share of books and watched my fair share of videos, but I would have to say that I really never spent the time and energy really absorbing them. Sure, I was exposed to lots of new concepts and ideas; but implementing them in my games was a whole different animal.

After reading a post from fellow go blogger Noseki, I was inspired to take a new approach with my go studies by fully immersing myself in it. For example, in my game for Yunguseng Dojang, I replayed every move on the real board and really took my time to absorb each and every move (which is the reason I ended up losing on time since I completely did not pay attention to my computer which was telling me I was running out of time).

In addition, I’ve also revamped my primary study materials for books. I’m going back to the Level Up Series (starting with Level Up! Review 1 since I don’t have time to start all the way back at Level Up 1) and working my way through it with extreme thoroughness. In other words, no solution whatsoever. I will work through every problem and solve it with absolute certainty before moving on.

If I have any hope of becoming any stronger, I think that it’s finally time that I stopped cutting corners. The time for me to be knocking at the door of the dans is fast approaching, and I have no intention of letting myself be caught unawares when that time comes.

Overview

This week has been focused on one thing: playing more games. As you’ll notice in my games section, I played a whopping 18 live games this week! And though I have been on an epic losing streak (with an occasional win to here and there), I can definitely feel the inexperience of being on the battlefield affect my play. Hopefully in time I will be losing due to actual mistakes instead of just playing moves on the board “just because.”

Another milestone for this week is the official start of the Yunguseng Dojang! The first official lecture was on Monday (May 5th) and it was on local techniques. Though I had heard of the techniques before (i.e., across attachment, break the dog’s face, and indirect defense), it was really great to have Inseong break down the different techniques while also showing where they appear within real games.

I also played my first round as well last night. I ended up losing by time (because I was playing the game on a real board and lost track of time), but I felt that it was a game I wasn’t ashamed of. I tried a number of new things and tried to avoid any egregious errors. Of course, in the review, I got torn apart so it didn’t feel so great; but I think those are the kinds of lessons that tend to burn in your memory. Ah well. Next game I’ll do better!

Training Regimen

• Spend about 50% of your time playing games - Though I haven’t measured this out with accuracy, I am simply trying to make sure that I play as much as I can. Believe it or not, I’ve started playing 10 minute games in order to ease up time pressure on myself. I used to hate this time setting, but I’m starting to gain a new appreciation for it. More on this when I’ve solidified my position on it.
• Spend 10 minutes/day perusing a new book of go - I happen to have a lot of books that I own but haven’t read, so I created this new task in order to allow me to actually go through all the books that I own. I know it’s not quite the same as studying, but it’s fun for me and plus it’ll allow me to put more book reviews up in the future.
• Spend 20 minutes/day focusing on one topic of go - I’ve noticed that my attention span for a particular subject is super volatile these days. One day I’m interested in positional judgment, and the next day I’m curious about joseki. So instead of binding myself down to the same book (which gets boring for me), I devised this task in order to allow for topic changes while still giving myself adequate time to really study and absorb one topic per day. Lectures also can be used in place of books as well.

Games*

• KGS - 6 games
• Tygem - 20+ games
• IGS - 5+ game
• DGS - 5 ongoing games
• OGS - 3 ongoing games
  *I’m probably going to need a new structure for doing this. I’m starting to play a lot more now and it’s getting hard to track the exact number of games I’ve been playing. Do you think it’s useful that I keep specific metrics? Or is there something better I can do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Books

• Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Volume 1
• The Theory and Practice of Tsumego
• Positional Judgment

Videos

• YSD - AYD S9 1st lecture Knight move across attachment / Break the dog’s face / Indirect defense
• YSD - Season 1 Fri 1st July 20:00 Opening Theory, ABC Examples (In Progress)
• YSD - Season 6 1st lecture Theme lecture ‘1-2-3 reading’ (In Progress)

Introduction

Welcome to my new Thursday Go Tygem series! This series is inspired by fellow go blogger Eyecatcher’s WBaduk Challenge series where he posts the games from WBaduk to keep himself disciplined and force himself to review his games from there as well. As you might have guessed from the title of this series, the games featured on here will solely be from Tygem.

I’m sure some of you are wondering though, “What’s the difference between this and Monday Go Meditation?”

1. Higher Level Commentaries - Instead of being extremely detailed with every move, this series focuses on higher level commentary that highlights big points and any key aspects of how I thought the game went. In addition, it will abstain from any detailed explanation regarding variations in order to save on time and effort. By doing this, I am hoping that this will help speed up my process (since reviewing all my games via Monday Go Meditation is practically impossible).
2. Exclusively Dan Level Opponents - The unique kicker to this entire series is that it will consist entirely of me playing dan players on Tygem. As some of you might remember, frozensoul once gave me the challenge to exclusively play dan players on Tygem in order to get stronger. Well, your wish is granted sensei. This series is the start of me embarking on that journey.
   And since this is a new series, it would be great if you could leave some feedback below to let me know whether or not I should continue with this series or if there are things I should do to improve it! Here we go!

Game Summary

no,Category,Good,Bad
1,Opening,Moves 8-10: Ignoring White’s pincer to make my own enclosure and then diving in the corner felt like good timing overall.,Move 11: I messed up the lower left joseki due to carelessness.
2,Middle Game,Move 45-49: I was really proud of this sequence since I could break up White’s area while counter attacking at the same time., Move 56: I feel I may have mishandled this crosscut fight and gave away too much to White as a result.
3,Fighting,Move 158-160: I was proud of myself for not backing away from the ko fight., Nothing bad as far as I can tell.
4,Endgame,My endgame felt average this game. Nothing special.,Move 134: Letting White get this hane was really painful.
5,Overall Reading,Overall I think I did alright. Nothing I’m particularly proud of though., Move 100: Didn’t see that coming!

Weekly Go Wednesday: Issue #39

For Game 4 of this epic jubango between Lee Sedol (9P) and Gu Li (9P), with the current record being 2-1 in Lee Sedol’s favor, everyone sat in anticipation as they waited to see if Gu Li would be able to even up the record! With Gu Li’s record against Lee Sedol as of late though, many fans were certainly feeling that Gu Li had a great chance to win this game.

I am happy to say that today’s review is forged from the combined efforts of myself and frozensoul (5d) once again! Though I didn’t make this explicitly clear before, please feel free to direct any questions to him on KGS or even leave a comment below for him and he’ll be sure to answer. Hope that you enjoy our game review and let us know if there’s anything we can do to improve it for you!

For more advanced reviews, be sure to keep an eye out on World Go Online and GoGameGuru since I’m sure they will have their own in the near future.